Chilean Cooking Class

My roommates and I spent Saturday at a Chilean Cooking Class! I was very excited about it because my friend Alissa took a cooking class while she was in Spain and only had good things to say about it! :) I hope you are reading this my dearest Alissa. You are the best :)

It is held by a company in Valparaiso, which is just down the coast. We took the 30 minute metro ride to Valpo, and then met up with our cooking instructor outside of a coffee shop on the plaza. We had no idea if the class would be in English or Spanish, but it was in English which was very nice. There were a few other people in our class including two people from Taiwan, and a girl from the USA who has now lived in Santiago for 7 years, her Chilean boyfriend, and her parents who had come to visit her for a week.

The first thing we had to do was sit down and decide as a group what dishes we wanted to make. Empanadas were for sure on the menu, but we had to decide on an appetizer, a main dish, a dessert, and drinks. Once we made our decisions, our group hopped on a bus across town and we went to the fish market and the market. The fish market was CRAZY! I have never gone to anything like that before and it was wild. It smelled pretty gross, but it was really cool. There were people everywhere, as well as a lot of stray cats looking for something to steal. There were so many different kinds of fish. Some tiny ones, some HUGE ones. One table had these huge cuts of fish that seriously looked like tree stumps. They were huge! We asked the guy what type of fish it was and he said it was a swordfish! Crazy. I wanted to take a lot of pictures, but there were people everywhere and it was not a good place to be taking out a camera or phone. I did snap a few on the edges though.

This was the Conger eel which was really cool to see because we ate this at the Cap Ducal boat restaurant the other day!

After the fish market we proceeded to the fruits/vegetables market which was really cool as well. There were SO many vendors in there with delicious looking produce. They have some very interesting fruits here as well. I bought some prickly pears the other day, also known as cactus pears or tuna here. We basically followed our guide around the market as she navigated her way through and purchased enough of everything we needed. 

We then hopped on a bus and headed back toward the cooking place. Valpo is an extremely hilly, steep city, and so we were climbing and climbing up to get to the kitchen building. Definitely a good workout! When we got there, they had Chilean cooking hats and aprons for us to wear, and we took some pictures, but Laura has those so I will have to get those from her. I did take quite a few food photos though as we were cooking! We started with a run through of everything we were making and how the day would go. Then we divided up dishes and tasks and started going at it.

Here is the menu of everything that we made:

I volunteered to help chop up things for the pebre, which is a salsa type dish, very similar to pico de gallo. It is very commonly served here at restaurants before a meal with bread. Similar to how many Mexican restaurants in the US always bring out chips and salsa. Everything had to be very finely minced, so it was quite the process. I was chopping cilantro, and that took forever but I did it! I also helped with some tomatoes. They always peel tomatoes here, which I have never seen before, but Inés (our chef) had this very cool tomato peeler that worked greatly! Laura was also helping chop onions, and the guy next to us was chopping onions and tomatoes like a pro. I have never seen anyone chop like that before and it was really cool to watch. He has definitely done a lot of cooking before and his wife just laughed at how amazed we were. He tried to teach us some tricks but we were really not that skilled. 

Here is a look at the finished pebre. Soo good!

Other people were working on various parts of other dishes, but we could all see each other and learned what needs to happen for each dish. Then I helped out getting the scallops ready. Some other people had cleaned them, but we needed to add garlic, butter, cream, white wine, and cheese. 

Here is a look at the scallops before they went into the oven:

Then we started putting together the Pastel de Choclo and empanadas. We each got to make our own individual ones which was fun. They have very similar fillings, and it was nice to be able to choose what we wanted in them because they normally come with olives, but I really do not like olives so I did not have to put them in mine. The pastel de choclo is a corn pie. The bottom layer is chicken, then ground beef with various spices and onions, then a hard boiled egg, then olives and raisins. Then the top is blended corn and milk and it gets baked in the oven. It was SO delicious. I can't wait to try more Pastel de Choclo at various places around here. It is also something that will be so easy to replicate once I am back home in the US. 

Here is a photo of me with my pastel de choclo before it went into the oven. I used raisins to mark mine with an M.

Then we made the empanadas. She mixed up the dough and we got to take turns kneading it. Then we had to roll it out, fill it with ground beef (the same mixture as in the pastel), egg, olives, and grapes. This is known as an empanada de pino and is a very traditional Chilean empanada. You can get them filled with various things, but pino is the traditional one. It was fun to make our own unique ones, and everybody's looked a little different. 

Here is my empanada after it came out of the oven! I gave it a little tail to remember it was mine.

We put the empanadas and pasteles in the oven, and then continued preparing a few last things. We made juice from the cactus pears, as well as pisco sours, the national Chilean drink. She showed us the proper way to cut a cactus pear which was great because I had struggled with cutting one the night before! They are a very strange fruit. I will have to take a photo of one someday soon.

It was interesting to see how Piscos are made because I see them everywhere. She put in grape brandy, lemon juice, egg whites, ice, and some sweetening syrup. Then it all gets shaken up in these interesting cans to break up the ice and make it frothy. 

Then the feasting began! Everything tasted SO good. Obviously this was a much larger meal than the normal meal would be, but we had lots of food to try! We also receive all the recipes, which will be so great to have when I get back to the states. I liked everything that we ate, and I was SO full by the end. 

Here are the completed scallops! I did not know if I would like them very much, but they were SO good. 

Here is our dessert! It was a custard covered with palm tree syrup! I never knew they made such a thing, but they tap the trees for syrup just like how we tap maple trees. SO delicious. 

Overall, the cooking class was such a great experience and I loved learning more about the food in Chile as well as the culture. It is neat to see how much preparation goes in to making these dishes. After the class we walked around Valpo for a little bit. The views of the coast are amazing, and Valpo has a large port so there are tons of boats around. The ocean is extremely deep off the coast so the ships are able to come right up next to the town which is crazy. I got to take my first ride on an ascensor! These are little elevator car things that go up and down in the city. They have a great view, and are very helpful for people who may not be able to climb up or down the steep streets. 

We rode the metro back to Viña, and then headed to the beach to watch the sunset. There were so many people out and about. It was a beautiful, clear night and the sunset was gorgeous. I can't wait to go to the beach more often in the evening and watch the sunsets. It is crazy how chilly it gets when the sun goes down.